Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Monitoring,
by the International Council of Scientific Union's Scientific
Committee on Problems of the Environment; and the much more famous
The Limits to Growth,
produced by a group called the Club of Rome.
7
These
studies were developed more or less concurrently between 1969 and 1972,
and they overlapped significantly in subject matter and in personnel. They
all advocated a holistic, interdisciplinary “systems science” approach to the
global environment that their authors believed would, if implemented, lead
to rational and effective environmental policymaking at the international
level. With the exception of
The Limits to Growth,
each of these studies was
undertaken explicitly for the 1972 U.N. Conference on the Human Envi-
ronment, and, again with the exception of
Limits to Growth
, each included
a significant number of atmospheric scientists and was characterized by an
overriding concern for atmospheric and climatic change.
Despite its relative reticence on climate,
The Limits to Growth
provided
the clearest and most popular application of the systems science methodol-
ogy behind all four efforts. A general term,
systems science
describes a multi-
faceted movement within the scientific community after the Second World
War to use digital computers to numerically simulate complex, nonlinear
phenomena.
8
The Limits to Growth
built upon a subfield of systems science
called systems dynamics, a method of studying complex organizations over
time pioneered by computer engineer Jay Forrester, who became a man-
agement science expert.
9
The Limits to Growth,
published in the spring of
1972, grew out of a project initiated by an elite international group of scien-
tists, industrialists, businesspeople, diplomats, and leaders of civil society
founded by Italian industrialist Aurelio Peccei, called the Club of Rome.
Drawing on Forrester's “World 1” and “World 2” computer models, the club
focused on the genesis of and possible solutions to humanity's common
and persistent problems: “poverty in the midst of plenty; degradation of
the environment; loss of faith in institutions; uncontrolled urban spread;
insecurity of employment; alienation of youth; rejection of traditional val-
ues; and inflation and other monetary and economic disruptions.”
10
Global
in scope, deeply interrelated, and changing at an ever- accelerating rate,
these issues constituted what Club member Hasan Ozbekhan defined as
a “generalized meta-problem (or
meta-system of problems
) which we have
called and shall continue to call the 'problematique.'”
11
The Club thus
came to call this collection of issues the
monde problèmatique.
As the name of the study suggests, the
Limits to Growth
group focused
